CLASSROOM TALK: UNDERSTANDING DIALOGUE, PEDAGOGY &

PRACTICE
Christine Edwards-Groves, Michele Anstey & Geoff Bull
Primary English Teaching Association of Australia, 2014
Extracts from Chapters 1 & 4
Imagine a classroom completely quiet not one where everyone is silently working but
one where nobody ever talks. How much learning is taking place and how would you
know? Of course classrooms are not like this, nor would we wish them to be. However,
thinking about a no talk classroom focuses attention on just how important talk is in
supporting and promoting learning, both by students and teachers. Talk plays a central
role in learning; in learning how to think and in talking your way into meaning. As
Emily Dickinson suggested some would say that words are transitory while she
believed that words have a life beyond their utterance the sounds may die but the
meanings live on.
The problem with something as universal as talk is that common sense beliefs about
the nature of talk have come to be accepted and adopted without any basis in
evidence about what actually happens in classrooms when teachers and students are,
or are not, talking. It is not so long ago when teachers were evaluated by the absence
of talk and the quality of the learning taking place was judged by the sounds of
silence. The sounds of silence can indicate that students are productively involved in
completing a task set by the teacher but it can also indicate that the system of
communication set up by the teacher has shaped the roles of the student learners into
passive consumption rather than active engagement. There is also an assumption that
productive involvement is best conducted in silence and that talk in and around a task
is of no benefit.
Conversely, classroom talk was sometimes viewed as a natural act that occurred
spontaneously and, as such, required little thought, planning or rehearsal. In this view
classroom talk was seen as more of an informal conversation. There is a difference
between talk and conversation. This concept of talk as being natural is quite removed
from the complexities of the classroom where rules for talk need to be established
between teachers and students, that encourage cooperation in making meaning
through talk, rather than developing a competitiveness to be heard. In some
classrooms students struggle to be heard over other students and have to embark
daily on bidding to give answers. Such competitiveness means that talk is not natural.
Aside from being an unnatural act, talk is far from a smooth or even a continuous
process. It often flounders as individuals, either teachers or students, struggle towards
meaning having travelled up blind alleys and related personal anecdotes. When
students engage in this type of cooperative talk in groups, then what Booth (1988)
called coproduction occurs where students draw out meanings from each other that
they would not have arrived at on their own. This type of classroom talk where
students explore ideas is, by its very nature, hesitant and incomplete and is what led
Barnes (1976) to term it exploratory talk.
Barnes (1976) postulated that talk played a central role in learning by enabling
students to increase knowledge and develop understandings about particular topics by
talking their way into meaning. In this view talk allowed students to explore meaning
and try out new ways of understanding and to modify existing ideas. He concluded
that the value of exploratory talk was that it required the learner to be actively
engaged in the learning process through deliberate participation. Such active
participation depended on learners taking responsibility for their learning by asking
questions, making predictions and inferences and generally being thoughtful and
critical about their learning. There is, therefore, a relationship between exploratory talk
and reflective and critical behaviour on the part of the learner.

It is through this critical but constructive engagement that students are able to
challenge and counter-challenge thinking and to make reasoning visible in the talk. In
contrast to exploratory talk Barnes proposed a second function, that of presentational
talk. He suggested that in presentational talk the speaker was focused more on
content and audience. In this case the talk was more of a performance where
information was shared or presented rather than a context in which meaning was
developed. Presentational talk was seen more as a procedural display in response to a
question from the teacher where some sort of evaluation would take place and where
the emphasis was on providing information in an appropriate manner. Barnes reported
that much of the talk that teachers required of their students was presentational, and
while not denying the value of such talk, he concluded that teachers often expected
this type of talk too soon in the learning process. In other words, students were often
required to engage in display before they had been allowed sufficient time to explore
and digest new ideas.
These two functions of talk proposed by Barnes highlighted the role that exploratory
talk played in the process of learning through talk and the role that presentational talk
played in evaluation of student performance. Wells (1991) also attached importance to
the exploratory nature of teacherstudent and studentstudent talk. He suggested that
teachers were commonly so focused on asking comprehension questions that they
inadvertently prevented exploratory talk from developing. He called for a greater
emphasis on talk among students and teachers that he termed collaborative talk.
Features of classrooms that foster talk
Following from these ideas, the development of these functions of talk and behaviour
require the teacher to develop a pedagogy that allowed students to be responsible for,
and actively construct, their own learning (at least for some of the time). It also
requires establishment of a climate in the classroom where students felt encouraged
to talk and where they were not constrained by a fear of making mistakes or being
contradicted, but rather involved in making approximations in meanings and
developing understandings.
Students will engage in talk that is constructive only when they feel at ease to do so,
and when they feel that the teacher has given them permission and allowed them the
space to talk. In such classrooms teachers take a step backwards so that there is not
only teacher talk but also learner talk.
The shift from whole class lessons to group work was seen by many teachers as a way
of facilitating collaborative and exploratory talk. However, there were a number of
provisos to group work. Barnes cautioned against the idealisation of group work by
suggesting that it should not be seen as a universal remedy and that not all students
do well in group work. He also cautioned that the ability to think aloud and share
thoughts was not universal. Earlier Wilkinson (1991) had suggested that achieving
cooperative talk or consensus in group situations might be developmental in nature
with younger students being more absolute in talk situations and older students more
tentative and more prepared to listen to alternative opinions.
Kahn and Fine (1991) in their study of talk in group situations found that students in
Years 1 to 6 judged their classmates according to liked most or liked least according
to the frequency of their talk. Interestingly, Cain (2012) also found that individuals
(both children and adults) were judged favourably or unfavourably according to how
much they talked in group situations. Cain also found that those individuals who spoke
less frequently and were judged to be introverts exhibited higher order thinking skills
than those of their more talkative, extrovert group members.
What these studies indicate is that teacher pedagogy and classroom climates are
features that promote increasing amounts of student talk in everyday classrooms. The
introduction of group work aids in this implementation but it is far from a
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straightforward process and requires careful consideration on the part of the teacher
and a thorough knowledge of individual student abilities. This presents every teacher
with the problem of how to allow each student the freedom to talk their way into
meaning, while at the same time leading them in the desired direction. The key,
according to Barnes, is to allow adequate time for student reflection so that they can
recollect in tranquillity.
Studying teacher talk in classrooms
The early research about conceptions of classroom talk focused on teacher talk or
what was sometimes called recitation talk, where pre-eminence was given to
transmission of knowledge by the teacher followed by some sort of evaluation or
assessment. Wells (2001) referred to this type of teacher talk as monologic where the
teacher acted as the giver of knowledge and the student as the passive receiver.
This monologic talk took the form of a monologue by the teacher where the talk was
instigated by the teacher and was therefore one directional that is from teacher to
student and was typically controlled by questioning by the teacher. In the literature
this has become known as IRE sequencing (Initiation by the teacher in the form of a
question Response or answer by the student Evaluative comment by the teacher).
IRE was found to be the most common type of teacher talk in many classrooms and
has been described as the default option because teachers always return to it.
The research into teacher talk carried out by Wells (1999) and Mercer (1995) in the UK,
Harste (1993) and Nystrand (1997) in the US and Baker and Freebody (1989a), Anstey
(1993b) and Edwards-Groves (1998) in Australia, along with more recent studies by
Resnick et al., (2010) and Alexander (2001), found the IRE pattern of teacher talk to be
common in English/literacy lessons. The Resnick study involved studying teacher talk
in science and mathematics lessons where IRE sequences were found to be as
common as in English lessons.
In the Alexander study, sometimes referred to as the five nations study, teacher talk
was studied in five countries (UK, France, India, Russia, US) and the same reliance on
the IRE sequence was found, particularly in the UK and US and to a lesser extent in
France and Russia. The common thread in all these studies was that the teacher was
mediating students learning with little opportunity for student-initiated talk and that
teacher talk was dominated by questioning. Both Wells and Alexander found this to be
a depressing state of affairs perhaps made even more so by a recent study by Smith
et al., (2004) that found that only 10 per cent of teacher questions were open with the
average student response lasting five seconds and limited to three words or fewer in
70 per cent of answers.
It would seem that the IRE sequence in teacher talk is a universal pattern that crosses
disciplines and is common in both English-speaking and non-English-speaking
countries. Just why IREs are so common in classrooms is a matter of opinion and it
may be that it represents a pedagogy based on the idea that that is the way teaching
has always been conducted or it may be, that it is the default option that teachers
always return to in times of stress. These ideas may have some traction since recently
Moyles et al., (2003), Smith et al., (2004) and Wolf and Alexander (2008) have all
postulated that the standardized testing drive in many countries has reinforced the
more traditional patterns of teacher talk represented by IRE sequences, or at least
encouraged teachers to abandon more interactive patterns of talk.
Whatever the case, there is a considerable amount of research confirming the
ubiquitous nature of IRE sequences. There is general agreement among the
researchers that these IREs can encourage monologic teacher talk that severely limits
student or learner talk, that in turn affects the amount and quality of learning by
students. Also Nuthall (2005) has suggested that in classrooms where IREs
predominate there is clear tendency for the students with the loudest voices to be
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Network.

heard and valued highly (particularly by other students) and where the teacher
depends on the responses from a small number of key students.
In a later study Nuthall (2007) concluded that continual responses to IRE sequences
led students through their competitive bidding to supply answers to believe that
learning was about being seen to be right rather than a collaborative process.
However, this is not to suggest that IREs should be abandoned in favour of some other
type of teacher talk. The major concern here is classrooms where the IRE sequence is
the only one being used by the teacher. While it is the case that IREs limit students
learning in particular ways (such as talking their way into understanding), there is
nevertheless a place for them in certain lessons such as leading a class through a
complex series of ideas.
The reconceptualisation of classroom talk
This all gives a somewhat negative view of what is taking place in classrooms today.
Many classrooms are approaching both teacher and student talk from new
perspectives based on contemporary research and reconceptions of the nature of talk
and how it influences student learning and teacher pedagogy. There has been a
substantial amount of research about talk and there are significant reasons why talk
should play a central and fundamental role in learning. There are five areas of
research that have provided evidence that supports the importance of talk and have
implications for teacher practice. A summary of these areas of research is presented in
the table below.
This reconceptualising of talk necessitates a re-thinking, not only of the nature of talk,
but also the roles that talk plays in classrooms. In the last fifty years this shift in the
way researchers have conceptualised talk and investigated it in classrooms can best
be described as a shift from monologic talk to dialogic talk.

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Area of Research

Evidence Provided

Neurological

In the early years talk assists in brain development

Psychological

Talk plays a central role in the development of thinking

Socio/cultural

Talk assists in the development of relationships and views of

the world
Democracies are based on citizens talking rather than
listening and discussing rather than complying
Talk is central to the development of skills that support
meaning making

Political
Communicative

Talk That Enhances Learning

Talk that enhances learning can be describes as dialogic talk (as opposed to monologic
talk). This is defined as an approach where both teachers and students made
substantial and significant contributions to classroom talk and to learning in general.
Talk that enhances learning is enacted enacted when:
teachers and students share a joint inquiry where understandings are achieved
through discussion and collaboration (Bruner, 1996)
dialogue is mediated through open-ended and exploratory classroom activity
(Wells, 1999)
communication in the classroom is reciprocal between teachers and students and
between student and student and involves exchanges of ideas (Mercer, 2000)
Talk is not only reciprocal but also collective (in group and whole class), cumulative
(chaining of questions, answers and ideas) and supportive (Alexander, 2008a).
Talk encourages students to take on particular behaviours and roles and is more
likely to occur when students:
share a common purpose
allow each other to talk
value each others talk
ask questions as well as answering them
reflect on their own and others talk
tolerate uncertainty and tentativeness
explore and accept differences of opinion and points of view,
give evidence to support ideas (Myhill, 2005; Myhill et al., 2006).
Such talk attempts to engage students and teachers in a genuine dialogue in order to
engage in the process of inquiry and is termed dialogic talk. It aims to promote
critical thinking and encourage higher order thinking skills. It is quite distinct from the
question and answer routines that are a feature of the IRE sequence-based
interactions that are commonly found in classrooms, where there is a preponderance
of teacher talk and little learner talk. There is a real attempt to create authentic
teacherstudent exchanges through the exploration of ideas and the use of
exploratory and collaborative talk.
What about Conversation?
Is conversation a kind of dialogic talk? Does it enhance learning? As researchers began
to analyse classroom discourse, a distinction between conversation and dialogic talk
arose, necessitated by a commonly held belief that the two terms were synonymous.
Alexander (2005a, p. 8) suggested that conversation was a more informal type of
discourse where the direction and endpoint of the talk is largely unclear, whereas in
dialogic talk the teacher normally had a clear view of the purpose and direction of the
talk.

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Further he suggested that conversation often consisted of a sequence of unrelated

two-part exchanges where participants talked at, rather than to, one another.
Conversely dialogic talk was seen to set out explicitly to seek attention and
engagement and was therefore much more likely to contain meaningful sequences
than conversation. As Wolfe and Alexander (2008) suggest conversation tends to be
relaxed whereas dialogic talk is more purposeful and coherent.

Dialogic talk and vacating the floor

If talk is to be truly dialogic then student talk has to be appreciated as equally
important as teacher talk by both teachers and students. If this position is to be
adopted in a classroom then the teacher has to be very conscious of the use of IRE
sequences. IRE sequences allow no space for student talk that is generated by the
students themselves because they are too focused on answering of teacher questions
(as is the teacher).
Dialogic talk requires the teacher to take a step back and provide opportunities for
students to instigate talk in a classroom environment where they feel comfortable to
do so. In the research on classroom talk this has been termed vacating the floor
(Bridges, 1988; Cazden, 1988; Perrott, 1988). Vacating the floor has come to be seen
as one of the most significant factors in encouraging students to engage in
exploratory talk and to take on some responsibility for shaping meaning through talk.
In a contemporary study of the patterns of classroom talk, Godinho and Shrimpton
(2003), concluded that vacating the floor created spaces for student dialogue and
shared ownership of the talk where shared meaning making could take place
between teachers and students.
Further Godinho and Shrimpton (2003, p. 38) stated that such a move authorised
students to become more analytical while still allowed teachers to be facilitators and
mediators of meaning through talk and promoted a collaborative inquiry approach
to develop. Later in the study Godinho and Shrimpton reported that in classrooms
where teachers had not vacated the floor students struggled to recall important
points in discussions and that many teachers found this move difficult. Finally they
identified in their study, three factors upon which classroom talk is dependent that
might go some way to supporting teachers in a move towards vacating the floor:
familiarisation of what constitutes a discussion by both teacher and student
introduction by the teacher of strategies that encourage dialogic talk
development of a pedagogy built upon a collaborative inquiry approach.
Teacher knowledge about what constitutes dialogic talk can be instrumental in
supporting them to take the step towards vacating the floor. Mercer (2000) suggested
that general agreement about the rules for talk was useful in creating a classroom
environment where students could focus more on collaboration and acclimatising to
having a voice of their own and less on competitive bidding for teacher attention.
Mercer (2000, p. 98) also identified three types of talk that occurred in discussions:
disputational talk that is competitive and is characterised by unwillingness to
accept alternative points of view
cumulative talk that builds on others talk
exploratory talk that allows students to explore new ideas.
Obviously the more a teacher knows about how talk is conducted and what is
involved in discussions, the more likely they are to be willing and confident to vacate
the floor.
Advantages of dialogic talk
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Alexander (2005b, p. 15) reported a number of positive outcomes from his work on
talk in the UK that was a reflection of his earlier conclusions in his five nations study
(2001). Among these outcomes was evidence that suggested a focus on dialogic talk
led to:
more talk about talk by both teachers and students
a discernible shift away from hands-up competitive bidding towards more in-depth
discussion
teachers giving more thinking time to students to answer questions
a replacement of IREs with questioning sequences that contained more open
questions,
a greater involvement of less able students and the quiet students due to the
more inclusive climate of their classrooms
An increase, due to a greater emphasis on talk, in the reading and writing abilities
of all students, especially the less able.
Alexander also reported an increasing use of videotaping of lessons by teachers in
order to study their talk with some teachers using the videos to include students in
analysis of classroom talk. Of particular interest were Alexanders findings that
students were increasingly commenting on the dynamics of the classroom such as
taking turns, engaging with others, appreciating alternative points of view and use of
eye contact.
Wolfe and Alexander (2008) and Mercer and Littleton (2007) all reported that when
students were involved in dialogue and discussion, they were more likely to engage in
critical discussion, learn more effectively and raise the levels of their intellectual
achievement. Similar advantages were advanced by Scott (2009) who cited a study
by Game and Metcalfe (2009) that concluded that dialogic talk enabled students to
engage in levels of thinking that they were not capable of on their own while still
recognising that such thoughts were developments of their own thinking.
Scott suggested that these types of collaboration could occur in interactions at whole
class, group or one-on-one situations. Alexander (2005b) in discussing his five nations
research concluded that students did not have to be directly involved in such
interactions in order to benefit rather just watching other students engage in dialogue
was sufficient.
An interesting contemporaneous development to this research was reported by Wolfe
and Alexander (2008) who cited studies (eg Ravenscroft & McAlister, 2008 and
Ravenscroft & Cook, 2007) that highlighted the potential of digital technologies to
produce a series of forums that were more personalised and informal, where
interactions might take place. Such examples are internet networks that allow
students to interact in forums (or what could be called communities of learners or
communities of inquiry) where they can engage in dialogue.
There seems little doubt that the benefits of engaging in dialogic talk are many and
varied and that there are advantages to be gained for both teachers and students.
Dialogic Talk & Learning
Dialogic Talk supports a constructionist view of learning. The basic tenets of
constructionism revolve around the following ideas about learning:
meaning cannot simply be taught but must also be learnt
learning involves students in an active process rather than passive reception of
ideas
content is learnt most successfully when students are sometimes involved in
uncovering ideas instead of always responding to teacher-led coverage
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 students need to learn knowledge and skills but they also need to learn to
critically question
learning involves actively constructing new ways of understanding in order to
construct a personal view of the world
working on understanding involves relating new understandings with existing
ones by incorporating students interests
constructing new understandings takes place most effectively when students are
not afraid to be tentative and prepared to make mistakes
while constructionism can be described as learner-centred it still requires explicit
instruction by the teacher and therefore is also teacher-centred.
Constructionism is so termed because an important component of this view of
learning is that students are required to be involved in structuring their own learning.
However, it would be a mistake to interpret this view as an invitation for teachers to
take such a step backwards or to no longer see a role for themselves in teaching.
Constructionism (also called: learning by discovery, inquiry learning, learning by
doing or problem-based learning) is based on, among other things, the concept of
differentiated learning where a balance is struck between teacher-centred and
student-centred pedagogy. Nevertheless it is much more concerned with allowing
students to play a role in their own learning. It is this feature that makes it an
appropriate pedagogy for dialogic teaching where the concern for student talk, as
well as teacher talk, is paramount.

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